Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League

 
A 1965 graduate of Midland, Simmie Hill is regarded as one of the best high school basketball players in the history of the WPIAL. Hill starred for the 1964-65 Midland boys’ basketball team, which won the WPIAL and PIAA Class A titles and was inducted into the WPIAL Hall of Fame in 2009. That Leopards team is considered by many to be one of the greatest high school basketball teams of all-time, and it was Hill who shined the brightest as a Parade Magazine All-American that scored 38 points in the WPIAL final against Aliquippa, and 31 points in the PIAA championship game versus Steelton-Highspire. He finished with 652 points in his senior season and 1,327 for his career at Midland. In the inaugural Dapper Dan Roundball Classic, Hill scored a game-high 28 points and was named MVP in Pennsylvania’s 89-76 win over the USA All-Stars at the Civic Arena. He began his collegiate career at Wichita State University, leading the freshman team in scoring, before transferring to Cameron Junior College where he became an NJCAA All-American. Hill completed his college years at West Texas State, earning a spot on The Sporting News All-America team alongside LSU’s Pete Maravich and UCLA’s Lew Alcindor among others. He averaged 24.5 points per game as a senior and led the Buffaloes to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), and to this day still holds the school’s single-season and career scoring average records. Hill was picked in the second round, 16th overall by the Chicago Bulls in the 1969 NBA Draft, and he ended up playing professional basketball in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and in Europe. Name a Hall of Fame and there’s a good chance that Hill is in it, as he has been inducted by Beaver County Sports (1986), West Texas A&M Athletics (1988), Midland Sports (2010), Cameron Athletics (2011), Pittsburgh Basketball Club (2018), and now the WPIAL.